Tribblix: manual page: git.1

GIT(1) Git Manual GIT(1)

NAME

git - the stupid content tracker

SYNOPSIS

git [-v | --version] [-h | --help] [-C <path>] [-c <name>=<value>]
[--exec-path[=<path>]] [--html-path] [--man-path] [--info-path]
[-p | --paginate | -P | --no-pager] [--no-replace-objects] [--no-lazy-fetch]
[--no-optional-locks] [--no-advice] [--bare] [--git-dir=<path>]
[--work-tree=<path>] [--namespace=<name>] [--config-env=<name>=<envvar>]
<command> [<args>]

DESCRIPTION

Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an
unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations
and full access to internals.

See gittutorial(7) to get started, then see giteveryday(7) for a
useful minimum set of commands. The Git User's Manual[1] has a more
in-depth introduction.

After you mastered the basic concepts, you can come back to this page
to learn what commands Git offers. You can learn more about
individual Git commands with "git help command". gitcli(7) manual
page gives you an overview of the command-line command syntax.

A formatted and hyperlinked copy of the latest Git documentation can
be viewed at https://git.github.io/htmldocs/git.html or
https://git-scm.com/docs.

OPTIONS

-v, --version
Prints the Git suite version that the git program came from.

This option is internally converted to git version ... and
accepts the same options as the git-version(1) command. If --help
is also given, it takes precedence over --version.

-h, --help
Prints the synopsis and a list of the most commonly used
commands. If the option --all or -a is given then all available
commands are printed. If a Git command is named this option will
bring up the manual page for that command.

Other options are available to control how the manual page is
displayed. See git-help(1) for more information, because git
--help ... is converted internally into git help ....

-C <path>
Run as if git was started in <path> instead of the current
working directory. When multiple -C options are given, each
subsequent non-absolute -C <path> is interpreted relative to the
preceding -C <path>. If <path> is present but empty, e.g. -C "",
then the current working directory is left unchanged.

This option affects options that expect path name like --git-dir
and --work-tree in that their interpretations of the path names
would be made relative to the working directory caused by the -C
option. For example the following invocations are equivalent:

git --git-dir=a.git --work-tree=b -C c status
git --git-dir=c/a.git --work-tree=c/b status

-c <name>=<value>
Pass a configuration parameter to the command. The value given
will override values from configuration files. The <name> is
expected in the same format as listed by git config (subkeys
separated by dots).

Note that omitting the = in git -c foo.bar ... is allowed and
sets foo.bar to the boolean true value (just like [foo]bar would
in a config file). Including the equals but with an empty value
(like git -c foo.bar= ...) sets foo.bar to the empty string which
git config --type=bool will convert to false.

--config-env=<name>=<envvar>
Like -c <name>=<value>, give configuration variable <name> a
value, where <envvar> is the name of an environment variable from
which to retrieve the value. Unlike -c there is no shortcut for
directly setting the value to an empty string, instead the
environment variable itself must be set to the empty string. It
is an error if the <envvar> does not exist in the environment.
<envvar> may not contain an equals sign to avoid ambiguity with
<name> containing one.

This is useful for cases where you want to pass transitory
configuration options to git, but are doing so on operating
systems where other processes might be able to read your command
line (e.g. /proc/self/cmdline), but not your environment (e.g.
/proc/self/environ). That behavior is the default on Linux, but
may not be on your system.

Note that this might add security for variables such as
http.extraHeader where the sensitive information is part of the
value, but not e.g. url.<base>.insteadOf where the sensitive
information can be part of the key.

--exec-path[=<path>]
Path to wherever your core Git programs are installed. This can
also be controlled by setting the GIT_EXEC_PATH environment
variable. If no path is given, git will print the current setting
and then exit.

--html-path
Print the path, without trailing slash, where Git's HTML
documentation is installed and exit.

--man-path
Print the manpath (see man(1)) for the man pages for this version
of Git and exit.

--info-path
Print the path where the Info files documenting this version of
Git are installed and exit.

-p, --paginate
Pipe all output into less (or if set, $PAGER) if standard output
is a terminal. This overrides the pager.<cmd> configuration
options (see the "Configuration Mechanism" section below).

-P, --no-pager
Do not pipe Git output into a pager.

--git-dir=<path>
Set the path to the repository (".git" directory). This can also
be controlled by setting the GIT_DIR environment variable. It can
be an absolute path or relative path to current working
directory.

Specifying the location of the ".git" directory using this option
(or GIT_DIR environment variable) turns off the repository
discovery that tries to find a directory with ".git" subdirectory
(which is how the repository and the top-level of the working
tree are discovered), and tells Git that you are at the top level
of the working tree. If you are not at the top-level directory of
the working tree, you should tell Git where the top-level of the
working tree is, with the --work-tree=<path> option (or
GIT_WORK_TREE environment variable)

If you just want to run git as if it was started in <path> then
use git -C <path>.

--work-tree=<path>
Set the path to the working tree. It can be an absolute path or a
path relative to the current working directory. This can also be
controlled by setting the GIT_WORK_TREE environment variable and
the core.worktree configuration variable (see core.worktree in
git-config(1) for a more detailed discussion).

--namespace=<path>
Set the Git namespace. See gitnamespaces(7) for more details.
Equivalent to setting the GIT_NAMESPACE environment variable.

--bare
Treat the repository as a bare repository. If GIT_DIR environment
is not set, it is set to the current working directory.

--no-replace-objects
Do not use replacement refs to replace Git objects. This is
equivalent to exporting the GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS environment
variable with any value. See git-replace(1) for more information.

--no-lazy-fetch
Do not fetch missing objects from the promisor remote on demand.
Useful together with git cat-file -e <object> to see if the
object is locally available. This is equivalent to setting the
GIT_NO_LAZY_FETCH environment variable to 1.

--no-optional-locks
Do not perform optional operations that require locks. This is
equivalent to setting the GIT_OPTIONAL_LOCKS to 0.

--no-advice
Disable all advice hints from being printed.

--literal-pathspecs
Treat pathspecs literally (i.e. no globbing, no pathspec magic).
This is equivalent to setting the GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS
environment variable to 1.

--glob-pathspecs
Add "glob" magic to all pathspec. This is equivalent to setting
the GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS environment variable to 1. Disabling
globbing on individual pathspecs can be done using pathspec magic
":(literal)"

--noglob-pathspecs
Add "literal" magic to all pathspec. This is equivalent to
setting the GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS environment variable to 1.
Enabling globbing on individual pathspecs can be done using
pathspec magic ":(glob)"

--icase-pathspecs
Add "icase" magic to all pathspec. This is equivalent to setting
the GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS environment variable to 1.

--list-cmds=<group>[,<group>...]
List commands by group. This is an internal/experimental option
and may change or be removed in the future. Supported groups are:
builtins, parseopt (builtin commands that use parse-options),
main (all commands in libexec directory), others (all other
commands in $PATH that have git- prefix), list-<category> (see
categories in command-list.txt), nohelpers (exclude helper
commands), alias and config (retrieve command list from config
variable completion.commands)

--attr-source=<tree-ish>
Read gitattributes from <tree-ish> instead of the worktree. See
gitattributes(5). This is equivalent to setting the
GIT_ATTR_SOURCE environment variable.

GIT COMMANDS

We divide Git into high level ("porcelain") commands and low level
("plumbing") commands.

HIGH-LEVEL COMMANDS (PORCELAIN)
We separate the porcelain commands into the main commands and some
ancillary user utilities.

Main porcelain commands

git-add(1)
Add file contents to the index.

git-am(1)
Apply a series of patches from a mailbox.

git-archive(1)
Create an archive of files from a named tree.

git-bisect(1)
Use binary search to find the commit that introduced a bug.

git-branch(1)
List, create, or delete branches.

git-bundle(1)
Move objects and refs by archive.

git-checkout(1)
Switch branches or restore working tree files.

git-cherry-pick(1)
Apply the changes introduced by some existing commits.

git-citool(1)
Graphical alternative to git-commit.

git-clean(1)
Remove untracked files from the working tree.

git-clone(1)
Clone a repository into a new directory.

git-commit(1)
Record changes to the repository.

git-describe(1)
Give an object a human readable name based on an available ref.

git-diff(1)
Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc.

git-fetch(1)
Download objects and refs from another repository.

git-format-patch(1)
Prepare patches for e-mail submission.

git-gc(1)
Cleanup unnecessary files and optimize the local repository.

git-grep(1)
Print lines matching a pattern.

git-gui(1)
A portable graphical interface to Git.

git-init(1)
Create an empty Git repository or reinitialize an existing one.

git-log(1)
Show commit logs.

git-maintenance(1)
Run tasks to optimize Git repository data.

git-merge(1)
Join two or more development histories together.

git-mv(1)
Move or rename a file, a directory, or a symlink.

git-notes(1)
Add or inspect object notes.

git-pull(1)
Fetch from and integrate with another repository or a local
branch.

git-push(1)
Update remote refs along with associated objects.

git-range-diff(1)
Compare two commit ranges (e.g. two versions of a branch).

git-rebase(1)
Reapply commits on top of another base tip.

git-reset(1)
Reset current HEAD to the specified state.

git-restore(1)
Restore working tree files.

git-revert(1)
Revert some existing commits.

git-rm(1)
Remove files from the working tree and from the index.

git-shortlog(1)
Summarize git log output.

git-show(1)
Show various types of objects.

git-sparse-checkout(1)
Reduce your working tree to a subset of tracked files.

git-stash(1)
Stash the changes in a dirty working directory away.

git-status(1)
Show the working tree status.

git-submodule(1)
Initialize, update or inspect submodules.

git-switch(1)
Switch branches.

git-tag(1)
Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG.

git-worktree(1)
Manage multiple working trees.

gitk(1)
The Git repository browser.

scalar(1)
A tool for managing large Git repositories.

Ancillary Commands

Manipulators:

git-config(1)
Get and set repository or global options.

git-fast-export(1)
Git data exporter.

git-fast-import(1)
Backend for fast Git data importers.

git-filter-branch(1)
Rewrite branches.

git-mergetool(1)
Run merge conflict resolution tools to resolve merge conflicts.

git-pack-refs(1)
Pack heads and tags for efficient repository access.

git-prune(1)
Prune all unreachable objects from the object database.

git-reflog(1)
Manage reflog information.

git-refs(1)
Low-level access to refs.

git-remote(1)
Manage set of tracked repositories.

git-repack(1)
Pack unpacked objects in a repository.

git-replace(1)
Create, list, delete refs to replace objects.

Interrogators:

git-annotate(1)
Annotate file lines with commit information.

git-blame(1)
Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file.

git-bugreport(1)
Collect information for user to file a bug report.

git-count-objects(1)
Count unpacked number of objects and their disk consumption.

git-diagnose(1)
Generate a zip archive of diagnostic information.

git-difftool(1)
Show changes using common diff tools.

git-fsck(1)
Verifies the connectivity and validity of the objects in the
database.

git-help(1)
Display help information about Git.

git-instaweb(1)
Instantly browse your working repository in gitweb.

git-merge-tree(1)
Perform merge without touching index or working tree.

git-rerere(1)
Reuse recorded resolution of conflicted merges.

git-show-branch(1)
Show branches and their commits.

git-verify-commit(1)
Check the GPG signature of commits.

git-verify-tag(1)
Check the GPG signature of tags.

git-version(1)
Display version information about Git.

git-whatchanged(1)
Show logs with differences each commit introduces.

gitweb(1)
Git web interface (web frontend to Git repositories).

Interacting with Others

These commands are to interact with foreign SCM and with other people
via patch over e-mail.

git-archimport(1)
Import a GNU Arch repository into Git.

git-cvsexportcommit(1)
Export a single commit to a CVS checkout.

git-cvsimport(1)
Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to hate.

git-cvsserver(1)
A CVS server emulator for Git.

git-imap-send(1)
Send a collection of patches from stdin to an IMAP folder.

git-p4(1)
Import from and submit to Perforce repositories.

git-quiltimport(1)
Applies a quilt patchset onto the current branch.

git-request-pull(1)
Generates a summary of pending changes.

git-send-email(1)
Send a collection of patches as emails.

git-svn(1)
Bidirectional operation between a Subversion repository and Git.

Reset, restore and revert
There are three commands with similar names: git reset, git restore
and git revert.

+o git-revert(1) is about making a new commit that reverts the
changes made by other commits.

+o git-restore(1) is about restoring files in the working tree from
either the index or another commit. This command does not update
your branch. The command can also be used to restore files in the
index from another commit.

+o git-reset(1) is about updating your branch, moving the tip in
order to add or remove commits from the branch. This operation
changes the commit history.

git reset can also be used to restore the index, overlapping with
git restore.

LOW-LEVEL COMMANDS (PLUMBING)
Although Git includes its own porcelain layer, its low-level commands
are sufficient to support development of alternative porcelains.
Developers of such porcelains might start by reading about git-
update-index(1) and git-read-tree(1).

The interface (input, output, set of options and the semantics) to
these low-level commands are meant to be a lot more stable than
Porcelain level commands, because these commands are primarily for
scripted use. The interface to Porcelain commands on the other hand
are subject to change in order to improve the end user experience.

The following description divides the low-level commands into
commands that manipulate objects (in the repository, index, and
working tree), commands that interrogate and compare objects, and
commands that move objects and references between repositories.

Manipulation commands

git-apply(1)
Apply a patch to files and/or to the index.

git-checkout-index(1)
Copy files from the index to the working tree.

git-commit-graph(1)
Write and verify Git commit-graph files.

git-commit-tree(1)
Create a new commit object.

git-hash-object(1)
Compute object ID and optionally create an object from a file.

git-index-pack(1)
Build pack index file for an existing packed archive.

git-merge-file(1)
Run a three-way file merge.

git-merge-index(1)
Run a merge for files needing merging.

git-mktag(1)
Creates a tag object with extra validation.

git-mktree(1)
Build a tree-object from ls-tree formatted text.

git-multi-pack-index(1)
Write and verify multi-pack-indexes.

git-pack-objects(1)
Create a packed archive of objects.

git-prune-packed(1)
Remove extra objects that are already in pack files.

git-read-tree(1)
Reads tree information into the index.

git-replay(1)
EXPERIMENTAL: Replay commits on a new base, works with bare repos
too.

git-symbolic-ref(1)
Read, modify and delete symbolic refs.

git-unpack-objects(1)
Unpack objects from a packed archive.

git-update-index(1)
Register file contents in the working tree to the index.

git-update-ref(1)
Update the object name stored in a ref safely.

git-write-tree(1)
Create a tree object from the current index.

Interrogation commands

git-cat-file(1)
Provide contents or details of repository objects.

git-cherry(1)
Find commits yet to be applied to upstream.

git-diff-files(1)
Compares files in the working tree and the index.

git-diff-index(1)
Compare a tree to the working tree or index.

git-diff-tree(1)
Compares the content and mode of blobs found via two tree
objects.

git-for-each-ref(1)
Output information on each ref.

git-for-each-repo(1)
Run a Git command on a list of repositories.

git-get-tar-commit-id(1)
Extract commit ID from an archive created using git-archive.

git-ls-files(1)
Show information about files in the index and the working tree.

git-ls-remote(1)
List references in a remote repository.

git-ls-tree(1)
List the contents of a tree object.

git-merge-base(1)
Find as good common ancestors as possible for a merge.

git-name-rev(1)
Find symbolic names for given revs.

git-pack-redundant(1)
Find redundant pack files.

git-rev-list(1)
Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order.

git-rev-parse(1)
Pick out and massage parameters.

git-show-index(1)
Show packed archive index.

git-show-ref(1)
List references in a local repository.

git-unpack-file(1)
Creates a temporary file with a blob's contents.

git-var(1)
Show a Git logical variable.

git-verify-pack(1)
Validate packed Git archive files.

In general, the interrogate commands do not touch the files in the
working tree.

Syncing repositories

git-daemon(1)
A really simple server for Git repositories.

git-fetch-pack(1)
Receive missing objects from another repository.

git-http-backend(1)
Server side implementation of Git over HTTP.

git-send-pack(1)
Push objects over Git protocol to another repository.

git-update-server-info(1)
Update auxiliary info file to help dumb servers.

The following are helper commands used by the above; end users
typically do not use them directly.

git-http-fetch(1)
Download from a remote Git repository via HTTP.

git-http-push(1)
Push objects over HTTP/DAV to another repository.

git-receive-pack(1)
Receive what is pushed into the repository.

git-shell(1)
Restricted login shell for Git-only SSH access.

git-upload-archive(1)
Send archive back to git-archive.

git-upload-pack(1)
Send objects packed back to git-fetch-pack.

Internal helper commands

These are internal helper commands used by other commands; end users
typically do not use them directly.

git-check-attr(1)
Display gitattributes information.

git-check-ignore(1)
Debug gitignore / exclude files.

git-check-mailmap(1)
Show canonical names and email addresses of contacts.

git-check-ref-format(1)
Ensures that a reference name is well formed.

git-column(1)
Display data in columns.

git-credential(1)
Retrieve and store user credentials.

git-credential-cache(1)
Helper to temporarily store passwords in memory.

git-credential-store(1)
Helper to store credentials on disk.

git-fmt-merge-msg(1)
Produce a merge commit message.

git-hook(1)
Run git hooks.

git-interpret-trailers(1)
Add or parse structured information in commit messages.

git-mailinfo(1)
Extracts patch and authorship from a single e-mail message.

git-mailsplit(1)
Simple UNIX mbox splitter program.

git-merge-one-file(1)
The standard helper program to use with git-merge-index.

git-patch-id(1)
Compute unique ID for a patch.

git-sh-i18n(1)
Git's i18n setup code for shell scripts.

git-sh-setup(1)
Common Git shell script setup code.

git-stripspace(1)
Remove unnecessary whitespace.

GUIDES

The following documentation pages are guides about Git concepts.

gitcore-tutorial(7)
A Git core tutorial for developers.

gitcredentials(7)
Providing usernames and passwords to Git.

gitcvs-migration(7)
Git for CVS users.

gitdiffcore(7)
Tweaking diff output.

giteveryday(7)
A useful minimum set of commands for Everyday Git.

gitfaq(7)
Frequently asked questions about using Git.

gitglossary(7)
A Git Glossary.

gitnamespaces(7)
Git namespaces.

gitremote-helpers(7)
Helper programs to interact with remote repositories.

gitsubmodules(7)
Mounting one repository inside another.

gittutorial(7)
A tutorial introduction to Git.

gittutorial-2(7)
A tutorial introduction to Git: part two.

gitworkflows(7)
An overview of recommended workflows with Git.

REPOSITORY, COMMAND AND FILE INTERFACES
This documentation discusses repository and command interfaces which
users are expected to interact with directly. See --user-formats in
git-help(1) for more details on the criteria.

gitattributes(5)
Defining attributes per path.

gitcli(7)
Git command-line interface and conventions.

githooks(5)
Hooks used by Git.

gitignore(5)
Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore.

gitmailmap(5)
Map author/committer names and/or E-Mail addresses.

gitmodules(5)
Defining submodule properties.

gitrepository-layout(5)
Git Repository Layout.

gitrevisions(7)
Specifying revisions and ranges for Git.

FILE FORMATS, PROTOCOLS AND OTHER DEVELOPER INTERFACES
This documentation discusses file formats, over-the-wire protocols
and other git developer interfaces. See --developer-interfaces in
git-help(1).

gitformat-bundle(5)
The bundle file format.

gitformat-chunk(5)
Chunk-based file formats.

gitformat-commit-graph(5)
Git commit-graph format.

gitformat-index(5)
Git index format.

gitformat-pack(5)
Git pack format.

gitformat-signature(5)
Git cryptographic signature formats.

gitprotocol-capabilities(5)
Protocol v0 and v1 capabilities.

gitprotocol-common(5)
Things common to various protocols.

gitprotocol-http(5)
Git HTTP-based protocols.

gitprotocol-pack(5)
How packs are transferred over-the-wire.

gitprotocol-v2(5)
Git Wire Protocol, Version 2.

CONFIGURATION MECHANISM

Git uses a simple text format to store customizations that are per
repository and are per user. Such a configuration file may look like
this:

#
# A '#' or ';' character indicates a comment.
#

; core variables
[core]
; Don't trust file modes
filemode = false

; user identity
[user]
name = "Junio C Hamano"
email = "gitster@pobox.com"

Various commands read from the configuration file and adjust their
operation accordingly. See git-config(1) for a list and more details
about the configuration mechanism.

IDENTIFIER TERMINOLOGY

SYMBOLIC IDENTIFIERS

Any Git command accepting any <object> can also use the following
symbolic notation:

HEAD
indicates the head of the current branch.

<tag>
a valid tag name (i.e. a refs/tags/<tag> reference).

<head>
a valid head name (i.e. a refs/heads/<head> reference).

For a more complete list of ways to spell object names, see
"SPECIFYING REVISIONS" section in gitrevisions(7).

FILE/DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
Please see the gitrepository-layout(5) document.

Read githooks(5) for more details about each hook.

Higher level SCMs may provide and manage additional information in
the $GIT_DIR.

TERMINOLOGY

Please see gitglossary(7).

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

Various Git commands pay attention to environment variables and
change their behavior. The environment variables marked as "Boolean"
take their values the same way as Boolean valued configuration
variables, e.g. "true", "yes", "on" and positive numbers are taken as
"yes".

Here are the variables:

System

HOME
Specifies the path to the user's home directory. On Windows, if
unset, Git will set a process environment variable equal to:
$HOMEDRIVE$HOMEPATH if both $HOMEDRIVE and $HOMEPATH exist;
otherwise $USERPROFILE if $USERPROFILE exists.

The Git Repository

These environment variables apply to all core Git commands. Nb: it is
worth noting that they may be used/overridden by SCMS sitting above
Git so take care if using a foreign front-end.

GIT_INDEX_FILE
This environment variable specifies an alternate index file. If
not specified, the default of $GIT_DIR/index is used.

GIT_INDEX_VERSION
This environment variable specifies what index version is used
when writing the index file out. It won't affect existing index
files. By default index file version 2 or 3 is used. See git-
update-index(1) for more information.

GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY
If the object storage directory is specified via this environment
variable then the sha1 directories are created underneath -
otherwise the default $GIT_DIR/objects directory is used.

GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES
Due to the immutable nature of Git objects, old objects can be
archived into shared, read-only directories. This variable
specifies a ":" separated (on Windows ";" separated) list of Git
object directories which can be used to search for Git objects.
New objects will not be written to these directories.

Entries that begin with " (double-quote) will be interpreted as
C-style quoted paths, removing leading and trailing double-quotes
and respecting backslash escapes. E.g., the value
"path-with-\"-and-:-in-it":vanilla-path has two paths:
path-with-"-and-:-in-it and vanilla-path.

GIT_DIR
If the GIT_DIR environment variable is set then it specifies a
path to use instead of the default .git for the base of the
repository. The --git-dir command-line option also sets this
value.

GIT_WORK_TREE
Set the path to the root of the working tree. This can also be
controlled by the --work-tree command-line option and the
core.worktree configuration variable.

GIT_NAMESPACE
Set the Git namespace; see gitnamespaces(7) for details. The
--namespace command-line option also sets this value.

GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES
This should be a colon-separated list of absolute paths. If set,
it is a list of directories that Git should not chdir up into
while looking for a repository directory (useful for excluding
slow-loading network directories). It will not exclude the
current working directory or a GIT_DIR set on the command line or
in the environment. Normally, Git has to read the entries in this
list and resolve any symlink that might be present in order to
compare them with the current directory. However, if even this
access is slow, you can add an empty entry to the list to tell
Git that the subsequent entries are not symlinks and needn't be
resolved; e.g.,
GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES=/maybe/symlink::/very/slow/non/symlink.

GIT_DISCOVERY_ACROSS_FILESYSTEM
When run in a directory that does not have ".git" repository
directory, Git tries to find such a directory in the parent
directories to find the top of the working tree, but by default
it does not cross filesystem boundaries. This Boolean environment
variable can be set to true to tell Git not to stop at filesystem
boundaries. Like GIT_CEILING_DIRECTORIES, this will not affect an
explicit repository directory set via GIT_DIR or on the command
line.

GIT_COMMON_DIR
If this variable is set to a path, non-worktree files that are
normally in $GIT_DIR will be taken from this path instead.
Worktree-specific files such as HEAD or index are taken from
$GIT_DIR. See gitrepository-layout(5) and git-worktree(1) for
details. This variable has lower precedence than other path
variables such as GIT_INDEX_FILE, GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY...

GIT_DEFAULT_HASH
If this variable is set, the default hash algorithm for new
repositories will be set to this value. This value is ignored
when cloning and the setting of the remote repository is always
used. The default is "sha1". See --object-format in git-init(1).

GIT_DEFAULT_REF_FORMAT
If this variable is set, the default reference backend format for
new repositories will be set to this value. The default is
"files". See --ref-format in git-init(1).

Git Commits

GIT_AUTHOR_NAME
The human-readable name used in the author identity when creating
commit or tag objects, or when writing reflogs. Overrides the
user.name and author.name configuration settings.

GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL
The email address used in the author identity when creating
commit or tag objects, or when writing reflogs. Overrides the
user.email and author.email configuration settings.

GIT_AUTHOR_DATE
The date used for the author identity when creating commit or tag
objects, or when writing reflogs. See git-commit(1) for valid
formats.

GIT_COMMITTER_NAME
The human-readable name used in the committer identity when
creating commit or tag objects, or when writing reflogs.
Overrides the user.name and committer.name configuration
settings.

GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL
The email address used in the author identity when creating
commit or tag objects, or when writing reflogs. Overrides the
user.email and committer.email configuration settings.

GIT_COMMITTER_DATE
The date used for the committer identity when creating commit or
tag objects, or when writing reflogs. See git-commit(1) for valid
formats.

EMAIL
The email address used in the author and committer identities if
no other relevant environment variable or configuration setting
has been set.

Git Diffs

GIT_DIFF_OPTS
Only valid setting is "--unified=??" or "-u??" to set the number
of context lines shown when a unified diff is created. This takes
precedence over any "-U" or "--unified" option value passed on
the Git diff command line.

GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF
When the environment variable GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is set, the
program named by it is called to generate diffs, and Git does not
use its builtin diff machinery. For a path that is added,
removed, or modified, GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is called with 7
parameters:

path old-file old-hex old-mode new-file new-hex new-mode

where:

<old|new>-file
are files GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF can use to read the contents of
<old|new>,

<old|new>-hex
are the 40-hexdigit SHA-1 hashes,

<old|new>-mode
are the octal representation of the file modes.

The file parameters can point at the user's working file (e.g.
new-file in "git-diff-files"), /dev/null (e.g. old-file when a
new file is added), or a temporary file (e.g. old-file in the
index). GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF should not worry about unlinking the
temporary file -- it is removed when GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF exits.

For a path that is unmerged, GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is called with 1
parameter, <path>.

For each path GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is called, two environment
variables, GIT_DIFF_PATH_COUNTER and GIT_DIFF_PATH_TOTAL are set.

GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF_TRUST_EXIT_CODE
If this Boolean environment variable is set to true then the
GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF command is expected to return exit code 0 if it
considers the input files to be equal or 1 if it considers them
to be different, like diff(1). If it is set to false, which is
the default, then the command is expected to return exit code 0
regardless of equality. Any other exit code causes Git to report
a fatal error.

GIT_DIFF_PATH_COUNTER
A 1-based counter incremented by one for every path.

GIT_DIFF_PATH_TOTAL
The total number of paths.

other
GIT_MERGE_VERBOSITY
A number controlling the amount of output shown by the recursive
merge strategy. Overrides merge.verbosity. See git-merge(1)

GIT_PAGER
This environment variable overrides $PAGER. If it is set to an
empty string or to the value "cat", Git will not launch a pager.
See also the core.pager option in git-config(1).

GIT_PROGRESS_DELAY
A number controlling how many seconds to delay before showing
optional progress indicators. Defaults to 2.

GIT_EDITOR
This environment variable overrides $EDITOR and $VISUAL. It is
used by several Git commands when, on interactive mode, an editor
is to be launched. See also git-var(1) and the core.editor option
in git-config(1).

GIT_SEQUENCE_EDITOR
This environment variable overrides the configured Git editor
when editing the todo list of an interactive rebase. See also
git-rebase(1) and the sequence.editor option in git-config(1).

GIT_SSH, GIT_SSH_COMMAND
If either of these environment variables is set then git fetch
and git push will use the specified command instead of ssh when
they need to connect to a remote system. The command-line
parameters passed to the configured command are determined by the
ssh variant. See ssh.variant option in git-config(1) for details.

$GIT_SSH_COMMAND takes precedence over $GIT_SSH, and is
interpreted by the shell, which allows additional arguments to be
included. $GIT_SSH on the other hand must be just the path to a
program (which can be a wrapper shell script, if additional
arguments are needed).

Usually it is easier to configure any desired options through
your personal .ssh/config file. Please consult your ssh
documentation for further details.

GIT_SSH_VARIANT
If this environment variable is set, it overrides Git's
autodetection whether GIT_SSH/GIT_SSH_COMMAND/core.sshCommand
refer to OpenSSH, plink or tortoiseplink. This variable overrides
the config setting ssh.variant that serves the same purpose.

GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY
Setting and exporting this environment variable to any value
tells Git not to verify the SSL certificate when fetching or
pushing over HTTPS.

GIT_ATTR_SOURCE
Sets the treeish that gitattributes will be read from.

GIT_ASKPASS
If this environment variable is set, then Git commands which need
to acquire passwords or passphrases (e.g. for HTTP or IMAP
authentication) will call this program with a suitable prompt as
command-line argument and read the password from its STDOUT. See
also the core.askPass option in git-config(1).

GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT
If this Boolean environment variable is set to false, git will
not prompt on the terminal (e.g., when asking for HTTP
authentication).

GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL, GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM
Take the configuration from the given files instead from global
or system-level configuration files. If GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM is set,
the system config file defined at build time (usually
/etc/gitconfig) will not be read. Likewise, if GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL
is set, neither $HOME/.gitconfig nor $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/config
will be read. Can be set to /dev/null to skip reading
configuration files of the respective level.

GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM
Whether to skip reading settings from the system-wide
$(prefix)/etc/gitconfig file. This Boolean environment variable
can be used along with $HOME and $XDG_CONFIG_HOME to create a
predictable environment for a picky script, or you can set it to
true to temporarily avoid using a buggy /etc/gitconfig file while
waiting for someone with sufficient permissions to fix it.

GIT_FLUSH
If this Boolean environment variable is set to true, then
commands such as git blame (in incremental mode), git rev-list,
git log, git check-attr and git check-ignore will force a flush
of the output stream after each record have been flushed. If this
variable is set to false, the output of these commands will be
done using completely buffered I/O. If this environment variable
is not set, Git will choose buffered or record-oriented flushing
based on whether stdout appears to be redirected to a file or
not.

GIT_TRACE
Enables general trace messages, e.g. alias expansion, built-in
command execution and external command execution.

If this variable is set to "1", "2" or "true" (comparison is case
insensitive), trace messages will be printed to stderr.

If the variable is set to an integer value greater than 2 and
lower than 10 (strictly) then Git will interpret this value as an
open file descriptor and will try to write the trace messages
into this file descriptor.

Alternatively, if the variable is set to an absolute path
(starting with a / character), Git will interpret this as a file
path and will try to append the trace messages to it.

Unsetting the variable, or setting it to empty, "0" or "false"
(case insensitive) disables trace messages.

GIT_TRACE_FSMONITOR
Enables trace messages for the filesystem monitor extension. See
GIT_TRACE for available trace output options.

GIT_TRACE_PACK_ACCESS
Enables trace messages for all accesses to any packs. For each
access, the pack file name and an offset in the pack is recorded.
This may be helpful for troubleshooting some pack-related
performance problems. See GIT_TRACE for available trace output
options.

GIT_TRACE_PACKET
Enables trace messages for all packets coming in or out of a
given program. This can help with debugging object negotiation or
other protocol issues. Tracing is turned off at a packet starting
with "PACK" (but see GIT_TRACE_PACKFILE below). See GIT_TRACE for
available trace output options.

GIT_TRACE_PACKFILE
Enables tracing of packfiles sent or received by a given program.
Unlike other trace output, this trace is verbatim: no headers,
and no quoting of binary data. You almost certainly want to
direct into a file (e.g., GIT_TRACE_PACKFILE=/tmp/my.pack) rather
than displaying it on the terminal or mixing it with other trace
output.

Note that this is currently only implemented for the client side
of clones and fetches.

GIT_TRACE_PERFORMANCE
Enables performance related trace messages, e.g. total execution
time of each Git command. See GIT_TRACE for available trace
output options.

GIT_TRACE_REFS
Enables trace messages for operations on the ref database. See
GIT_TRACE for available trace output options.

GIT_TRACE_SETUP
Enables trace messages printing the .git, working tree and
current working directory after Git has completed its setup
phase. See GIT_TRACE for available trace output options.

GIT_TRACE_SHALLOW
Enables trace messages that can help debugging fetching / cloning
of shallow repositories. See GIT_TRACE for available trace output
options.

GIT_TRACE_CURL
Enables a curl full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data,
including descriptive information, of the git transport protocol.
This is similar to doing curl --trace-ascii on the command line.
See GIT_TRACE for available trace output options.

GIT_TRACE_CURL_NO_DATA
When a curl trace is enabled (see GIT_TRACE_CURL above), do not
dump data (that is, only dump info lines and headers).

GIT_TRACE2
Enables more detailed trace messages from the "trace2" library.
Output from GIT_TRACE2 is a simple text-based format for human
readability.

If this variable is set to "1", "2" or "true" (comparison is case
insensitive), trace messages will be printed to stderr.

If the variable is set to an integer value greater than 2 and
lower than 10 (strictly) then Git will interpret this value as an
open file descriptor and will try to write the trace messages
into this file descriptor.

Alternatively, if the variable is set to an absolute path
(starting with a / character), Git will interpret this as a file
path and will try to append the trace messages to it. If the path
already exists and is a directory, the trace messages will be
written to files (one per process) in that directory, named
according to the last component of the SID and an optional
counter (to avoid filename collisions).

In addition, if the variable is set to
af_unix:[<socket-type>:]<absolute-pathname>, Git will try to open
the path as a Unix Domain Socket. The socket type can be either
stream or dgram.

Unsetting the variable, or setting it to empty, "0" or "false"
(case insensitive) disables trace messages.

See Trace2 documentation[2] for full details.

GIT_TRACE2_EVENT
This setting writes a JSON-based format that is suited for
machine interpretation. See GIT_TRACE2 for available trace output
options and Trace2 documentation[2] for full details.

GIT_TRACE2_PERF
In addition to the text-based messages available in GIT_TRACE2,
this setting writes a column-based format for understanding
nesting regions. See GIT_TRACE2 for available trace output
options and Trace2 documentation[2] for full details.

GIT_TRACE_REDACT
By default, when tracing is activated, Git redacts the values of
cookies, the "Authorization:" header, the "Proxy-Authorization:"
header and packfile URIs. Set this Boolean environment variable
to false to prevent this redaction.

GIT_NO_REPLACE_OBJECTS
Setting and exporting this environment variable tells Git to
ignore replacement refs and do not replace Git objects.

GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS
Setting this Boolean environment variable to true will cause Git
to treat all pathspecs literally, rather than as glob patterns.
For example, running GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS=1 git log -- '*.c'
will search for commits that touch the path *.c, not any paths
that the glob *.c matches. You might want this if you are feeding
literal paths to Git (e.g., paths previously given to you by git
ls-tree, --raw diff output, etc).

GIT_GLOB_PATHSPECS
Setting this Boolean environment variable to true will cause Git
to treat all pathspecs as glob patterns (aka "glob" magic).

GIT_NOGLOB_PATHSPECS
Setting this Boolean environment variable to true will cause Git
to treat all pathspecs as literal (aka "literal" magic).

GIT_ICASE_PATHSPECS
Setting this Boolean environment variable to true will cause Git
to treat all pathspecs as case-insensitive.

GIT_NO_LAZY_FETCH
Setting this Boolean environment variable to true tells Git not
to lazily fetch missing objects from the promisor remote on
demand.

GIT_REFLOG_ACTION
When a ref is updated, reflog entries are created to keep track
of the reason why the ref was updated (which is typically the
name of the high-level command that updated the ref), in addition
to the old and new values of the ref. A scripted Porcelain
command can use set_reflog_action helper function in git-sh-setup
to set its name to this variable when it is invoked as the top
level command by the end user, to be recorded in the body of the
reflog.

GIT_REF_PARANOIA
If this Boolean environment variable is set to false, ignore
broken or badly named refs when iterating over lists of refs.
Normally Git will try to include any such refs, which may cause
some operations to fail. This is usually preferable, as
potentially destructive operations (e.g., git-prune(1)) are
better off aborting rather than ignoring broken refs (and thus
considering the history they point to as not worth saving). The
default value is 1 (i.e., be paranoid about detecting and
aborting all operations). You should not normally need to set
this to 0, but it may be useful when trying to salvage data from
a corrupted repository.

GIT_COMMIT_GRAPH_PARANOIA
When loading a commit object from the commit-graph, Git performs
an existence check on the object in the object database. This is
done to avoid issues with stale commit-graphs that contain
references to already-deleted commits, but comes with a
performance penalty.

The default is "false", which disables the aforementioned
behavior. Setting this to "true" enables the existence check so
that stale commits will never be returned from the commit-graph
at the cost of performance.

GIT_ALLOW_PROTOCOL
If set to a colon-separated list of protocols, behave as if
protocol.allow is set to never, and each of the listed protocols
has protocol.<name>.allow set to always (overriding any existing
configuration). See the description of protocol.allow in git-
config(1) for more details.

GIT_PROTOCOL_FROM_USER
Set this Boolean environment variable to false to prevent
protocols used by fetch/push/clone which are configured to the
user state. This is useful to restrict recursive submodule
initialization from an untrusted repository or for programs which
feed potentially-untrusted URLS to git commands. See git-
config(1) for more details.

GIT_PROTOCOL
For internal use only. Used in handshaking the wire protocol.
Contains a colon : separated list of keys with optional values
<key>[=<value>]. Presence of unknown keys and values must be
ignored.

Note that servers may need to be configured to allow this
variable to pass over some transports. It will be propagated
automatically when accessing local repositories (i.e., file:// or
a filesystem path), as well as over the git:// protocol. For
git-over-http, it should work automatically in most
configurations, but see the discussion in git-http-backend(1).
For git-over-ssh, the ssh server may need to be configured to
allow clients to pass this variable (e.g., by using AcceptEnv
GIT_PROTOCOL with OpenSSH).

This configuration is optional. If the variable is not
propagated, then clients will fall back to the original "v0"
protocol (but may miss out on some performance improvements or
features). This variable currently only affects clones and
fetches; it is not yet used for pushes (but may be in the
future).

GIT_OPTIONAL_LOCKS
If this Boolean environment variable is set to false, Git will
complete any requested operation without performing any optional
sub-operations that require taking a lock. For example, this will
prevent git status from refreshing the index as a side effect.
This is useful for processes running in the background which do
not want to cause lock contention with other operations on the
repository. Defaults to 1.

GIT_REDIRECT_STDIN, GIT_REDIRECT_STDOUT, GIT_REDIRECT_STDERR
Windows-only: allow redirecting the standard input/output/error
handles to paths specified by the environment variables. This is
particularly useful in multi-threaded applications where the
canonical way to pass standard handles via CreateProcess() is not
an option because it would require the handles to be marked
inheritable (and consequently every spawned process would inherit
them, possibly blocking regular Git operations). The primary
intended use case is to use named pipes for communication (e.g.
\\.\pipe\my-git-stdin-123).

Two special values are supported: off will simply close the
corresponding standard handle, and if GIT_REDIRECT_STDERR is
2>&1, standard error will be redirected to the same handle as
standard output.

GIT_PRINT_SHA1_ELLIPSIS (deprecated)
If set to yes, print an ellipsis following an (abbreviated) SHA-1
value. This affects indications of detached HEADs (git-
checkout(1)) and the raw diff output (git-diff(1)). Printing an
ellipsis in the cases mentioned is no longer considered adequate
and support for it is likely to be removed in the foreseeable
future (along with the variable).

GIT_ADVICE
If set to 0, then disable all advice messages. These messages are
intended to provide hints to human users that may help them get
out of problematic situations or take advantage of new features.
Users can disable individual messages using the advice.* config
keys. These messages may be disruptive to tools that execute Git
processes, so this variable is available to disable the messages.
(The --no-advice global option is also available, but old Git
versions may fail when this option is not understood. The
environment variable will be ignored by Git versions that do not
understand it.)

DISCUSSION

More detail on the following is available from the Git concepts
chapter of the user-manual[3] and gitcore-tutorial(7).

A Git project normally consists of a working directory with a ".git"
subdirectory at the top level. The .git directory contains, among
other things, a compressed object database representing the complete
history of the project, an "index" file which links that history to
the current contents of the working tree, and named pointers into
that history such as tags and branch heads.

The object database contains objects of three main types: blobs,
which hold file data; trees, which point to blobs and other trees to
build up directory hierarchies; and commits, which each reference a
single tree and some number of parent commits.

The commit, equivalent to what other systems call a "changeset" or
"version", represents a step in the project's history, and each
parent represents an immediately preceding step. Commits with more
than one parent represent merges of independent lines of development.

All objects are named by the SHA-1 hash of their contents, normally
written as a string of 40 hex digits. Such names are globally unique.
The entire history leading up to a commit can be vouched for by
signing just that commit. A fourth object type, the tag, is provided
for this purpose.

When first created, objects are stored in individual files, but for
efficiency may later be compressed together into "pack files".

Named pointers called refs mark interesting points in history. A ref
may contain the SHA-1 name of an object or the name of another ref
(the latter is called a "symbolic ref"). Refs with names beginning
refs/head/ contain the SHA-1 name of the most recent commit (or
"head") of a branch under development. SHA-1 names of tags of
interest are stored under refs/tags/. A symbolic ref named HEAD
contains the name of the currently checked-out branch.

The index file is initialized with a list of all paths and, for each
path, a blob object and a set of attributes. The blob object
represents the contents of the file as of the head of the current
branch. The attributes (last modified time, size, etc.) are taken
from the corresponding file in the working tree. Subsequent changes
to the working tree can be found by comparing these attributes. The
index may be updated with new content, and new commits may be created
from the content stored in the index.

The index is also capable of storing multiple entries (called
"stages") for a given pathname. These stages are used to hold the
various unmerged version of a file when a merge is in progress.

SECURITY

Some configuration options and hook files may cause Git to run
arbitrary shell commands. Because configuration and hooks are not
copied using git clone, it is generally safe to clone remote
repositories with untrusted content, inspect them with git log, and
so on.

However, it is not safe to run Git commands in a .git directory (or
the working tree that surrounds it) when that .git directory itself
comes from an untrusted source. The commands in its config and hooks
are executed in the usual way.

By default, Git will refuse to run when the repository is owned by
someone other than the user running the command. See the entry for
safe.directory in git-config(1). While this can help protect you in a
multi-user environment, note that you can also acquire untrusted
repositories that are owned by you (for example, if you extract a zip
file or tarball from an untrusted source). In such cases, you'd need
to "sanitize" the untrusted repository first.

If you have an untrusted .git directory, you should first clone it
with git clone --no-local to obtain a clean copy. Git does restrict
the set of options and hooks that will be run by upload-pack, which
handles the server side of a clone or fetch, but beware that the
surface area for attack against upload-pack is large, so this does
carry some risk. The safest thing is to serve the repository as an
unprivileged user (either via git-daemon(1), ssh, or using other
tools to change user ids). See the discussion in the SECURITY section
of git-upload-pack(1).

FURTHER DOCUMENTATION

See the references in the "description" section to get started using
Git. The following is probably more detail than necessary for a
first-time user.

The Git concepts chapter of the user-manual[3] and gitcore-
tutorial(7) both provide introductions to the underlying Git
architecture.

See gitworkflows(7) for an overview of recommended workflows.

See also the howto[4] documents for some useful examples.

The internals are documented in the Git API documentation[5].

Users migrating from CVS may also want to read gitcvs-migration(7).

AUTHORS

Git was started by Linus Torvalds, and is currently maintained by
Junio C Hamano. Numerous contributions have come from the Git mailing
list <git@vger.kernel.org[6]>.
https://openhub.net/p/git/contributors/summary gives you a more
complete list of contributors.

If you have a clone of git.git itself, the output of git-shortlog(1)
and git-blame(1) can show you the authors for specific parts of the
project.

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to the Git mailing list <git@vger.kernel.org[6]> where
the development and maintenance is primarily done. You do not have to
be subscribed to the list to send a message there. See the list
archive at https://lore.kernel.org/git for previous bug reports and
other discussions.

Issues which are security relevant should be disclosed privately to
the Git Security mailing list <git-security@googlegroups.com[7]>.

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

NOTES

1. Git User's Manual
git-htmldocs/user-manual.html

2. Trace2 documentation
git-htmldocs/technical/api-trace2.html

3. Git concepts chapter of the user-manual
git-htmldocs/user-manual.html#git-concepts

4. howto
git-htmldocs/howto-index.html

5. Git API documentation
git-htmldocs/technical/api-index.html

6. git@vger.kernel.org
mailto:git@vger.kernel.org

7. git-security@googlegroups.com
mailto:git-security@googlegroups.com

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT(1)